Shoni

Chapter 18

Toni's POV

Shelby spent the entire plane ride clinging to me, not that I minded though her touch is comforting to me. Although I don't understand why she is scared, I mean we are saved. Shelby is asleep in my arms and I'm all caught up in my thoughts but my trance is broken when we feel the plane begin to land. 

"Hey, Shelby the plane landed wake up." I say softly 

Shelby rubs her eyes and sits up

"Where are we, exactly?" Shelbys asks 

"Hoesntsally I have no clue." I reply, I guess we were all just so excited to be saved we never even thought to ask 

One of the pilots walks out to speak to us after the plane has landed. 

"Okay laddies we made some calls, so we are now at a facility where we can have doctors see  you and investigators talk to you while we get in contact with your parents and wait for them to fly in." The man explained 

Everyone begins to follow the man off the plane and I pick up Shelby as we walk off the plane the man approached us with crutches for shelb.  

"Awe thanks, yall are too kind."  Shelby says with a smile 

As we enter I notice it's so dark and gloomy inside then we approach a hallway full of rooms.

"Alright, this one is yours." The man says to Fatin as he points to the room in front of her 

"wait we're not gonna be like together?" Fatin asks sadly 

"No sorry laddies there is a quarantine order in place so we can get reliable information from each of you, so you won't be able to see each other for a while." The man explains 

Shelby looks at me with fear in her eyes

"Hey, it's okay it won't be for long and we're safe now okay." I say to her while giving her hand a squeeze before we are escorted to our rooms. 

"wait, there's been a lot going on so I hadn't gotten to say anything yet but my sister got lost, but I know she's still out there somewhere so can you please send a search team or something...please." Rachel begs the men 

"of course, ma'am were on it, now get to your room the doctor will grab each of you soon." one of the men replied 

I look over to Shelby and mouth goodbye as I enter my room.

Shelbys POV

After waving goodbye to Toni I begin twisting the handle to the door in front of me before I am stoped. 

"Nope, not you,  you're going straight to the doctor so we can get that ankle fixed up." The man says to  me

"Well alrighty then." I reply 

The men lead the way to a hospital station with beds and tools and even what seems to be hair washing stations. There is a strong chemical smell as I step into the room and they bring me over to a bed lined with wax paper. 

"Hi, there deer I am one of the doctors here what's your name?" The doctor askes me 

"My names Shelby." I reply

This lady seems nice enough but I don't know there's something off about her but I kinda feel that way about everyone I have met in this place so far. The doctor grabs my leg and begins cleaning up my ankle and splinting it.

"Now that we are done with the splint do you want us to help you take care of that hair?" she asks

"Sure" I reply it will be nice to finally get this mess fixed up

I walk over to a chair and take a seat as the lady dips my hair into the bowl of water. She sits there with her conditioner and a comb and struggles to get through even a little section of my hair. As she attempts to work the comb through chunks of hair I think back to my pageants, having perfect hair is very important to win, and with my hair, all fucked up these past few weeks it's made me feel all this ugliness. I guess I have always kinda used my hair and clothes as shields for all this inner ugliness I felt, but I learned I have nothing to be ashamed of and I don't need shields anymore.

"STOP" I quickly blurt out

"This isn't workin and honestly I don't want it anymore, so do you have clippers?" I ask 

"Yeah if you're sure." She replies

I just nod and watch her plug in the buzzers when I hear the noise getting closer and closer to my ears I get kinda nervous. But when it finally hits my head and all the hair starts coming off it feels like this huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders it's like I'm proving to myself I don't have to be perfect all the time. 

"Okay you can go shower now, we left you some clothes, and when your done someone will bring you to your room." She tells me

I nod at her again and head towards the showers and even in this dark gloomy Dongen-looking place I am finally feeling free. 

Writer- Hey guy I hope you liked that chapter. I know I said I was probably just gonna stick with Toni and Shelby's POVs but I think it would be really hard to get a full account of what's happing without having more people's POVs. So I think I am gonna let each girl have one where they talk about their own bunker experience since it's more separate. Anyway, thank you so much for reading. XOXO